Republican-NRA-led drug war, mandatory minimum sentences, and handguns
Top :Share link: www.cannabis.wikia.com/nra :See: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. Also: Race, ethnicity, and the drug war. Also: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead. Democrats follow. Everybody pays. The "truth-in-sentencing" (mandatory minimum sentencing) and "Two and Three Strikes" laws apply to many nonviolent criminals too, and not just for drugs. At both the federal and state level. That includes marijuana possession above a certain amount, or growing above a certain number of plants. The NRA has often demonized drugs. For charts of all federal mandatory minimums (not just for drug offenses) see Federal Mandatory Minimum Charts. NRA Ad Envisions War Between Defenseless Middle Class And Drug Cartels With High-Capacity Magazines. By Aviva Shen on Feb 15, 2013. ThinkProgress. Mandatory minimums created huge U.S. incarceration rate Return to top. New York Times NPR. National Public Radio Special Series: The Legacy And Future Of Mass Incarceration. February 2013. NPR. Working with Prison Time: 40 years of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, a service of NCPR: North Country Public Radio. NRA, handguns, and youth murders in Chicago Return to top. The NRA started their campaign for mandatory minimums as a response to gun control activism in the 1990s. http://www.justicestrategies.org/sites/default/files/Judy/GettingToughOnCrime.pdf The NRA refuses to acknowledge that countries with low rates of handgun ownership have much lower murder rates. Only nationwide handgun bans work. Europe's national handgun bans work. But these statistics do not show the terror and post-traumatic stress of living in the war zones where many urban high schools in the USA are found. *Harper High School, Part One. Feb. 15, 2013. ''This American Life''. *Harper High School, Part Two. Feb. 22, 2013. ''This American Life''. "We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances." NRA CrimeStrike and mandatory minimums Return to top. The NRA must not be proud of their CrimeStrike program. At the time of this writing, the NRA website (nra.org) does not mention CrimeStrike. See this search of their website for "CrimeStrike". Fortunately, Google finds the history of CrimeStrike elsewhere: *Google Books: "CrimeStrike". *Google Scholar: "CrimeStrike". Getting Tough on Crime: The History and Political Context of Sentencing Reform Developments Leading to the Passage of the 1994 Crime Act. Published in Sentencing and Society: International Perspectives. Edited by Cyrus Tata and Neil Hutton. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire, England, 2002. Quote (emphasis added): : The book chapter discussed above mentions this NRA report from the early 1990s: CrimeStrike Special Report: Elements for an Effective Criminal Justice System. Author: CrimeStrike, A Division of the NRA. Showing Holes. By Peter H. Stone. ''Mother Jones''. January/February 1994 Issue. Quote from article (emphasis added): : NRA and Charlton Heston Criticize Safety Valve. DRCNet Activist Guide, Issue: #2, August 1994. Quote (emphasis added): : The NRA Strikes Back. By Chris Bryson, In These Times, March 17, 1997, pp. 18-19. Click "full page" link for full-size pages. Quote (emphasis added): : When Misery Means Profit: Immigration Enforcement, the Prison Industry and ALEC. 2011 article by AZ resists ALEC. See Wikipedia: American Legislative Exchange Council. Article quote (emphasis added): : Not for Praise, but for Principle. August 18, 1995. An address to the 17th Annual NRA National Shooting Coaches and Instructors Conference. By Thomas C. Wyld, Director, PR & Communications, National Rifle Association. Institute for Legislative Action. Fairfax, Virginia. Quote (emphasis added): : Corporate Con Game. June 21, 2010. By Beau Hodai, In These Times. Quote (emphasis added): : 10 Myths of Gun Control. March 1996, NRA Institute for Legislative Action. Quote (emphasis added): : Handguns equal high murder rate Return to top. The NRA started their campaign for mandatory minimums as a response to gun control activism in the 1990s. http://www.justicestrategies.org/sites/default/files/Judy/GettingToughOnCrime.pdf The NRA refuses to acknowledge that countries with low rates of handgun ownership have much lower murder rates. . His Twitter feed.]] and here.]] , and rocket-propelled grenades!]] Above graphic. See: Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence : Facts. See Wikipedia: Brady Campaign. The U.S. stats for shootings are startling: Gun Death and Injury Stat Sheet, 2008-2009. USA versus Canada and Europe. Canada has a much lower homicide rate than its neighbor to the south, the USA. In 2005 almost 3% of households in Canada possessed handguns, compared to 18% of U.S. households that possessed handguns. In 2011, 72% of the 8,583 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns. Nearly all of Western Europe bans or severely restricts handguns. Rifles and shotguns are legal to own. The murder rates are much lower than in the USA. In 2011 34% of adults in the United States personally owned a gun; 46% of adult men, and 23% of adult women. In 2011 47% of the adult U.S. population lived in households with guns. For more info on the data in the above paragraphs see these links and the large table in the next section: *Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 - Murder Victims by Weapon, 2007-2011. By the FBI (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation). *See Wikipedia: * List of countries by intentional homicide rate. * List of countries by firearm-related death rate. * Gun politics and Gun politics in Canada. * Gun politics in the United States. Percent of households by country with handguns and long guns Return to top. It would be nice to have more country charts listing the percent of households with handguns in every nation. Even better, a country or region chart with one column listing the murder rate, one column listing the percent of households possessing firearms, another column listing the percent of households possessing handguns, and another column listing the percent of murders committed using handguns. *Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. Is Highest Since 1993. By Lydia Saad. October 26, 2011. Gallup report. "Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period." *Table 18 on page 279 of Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective, by the International Crime Victims Survey. Table 18 heading: "Ownership of firearms and handguns in countries and main cities (percentages). 1989-2005 ICVS and 2005 EU ICS." From the report intro: "A large portion of the latest data in this report comes from the European Survey on Crime and Safety (EU ICS), organised by a consortium lead by Gallup Europe, co-financed by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Technology Development." The percentages in the table below are by household. High-capacity gun magazines Return to top. In the opinion of some the proliferation of handguns is far more important in causing higher murder rates than high-capacity gun magazines. High-capacity magazines in rifles and shotguns are a tiny problem in gun violence. Getting rid of handguns is what is necessary. Rifles and shotguns do not need to be banned. Neither do high-capacity magazines for rifles and shotguns. An "assault rifle" that is legal in the USA is just a semi-automatic rifle. Fully-automatic rifles (machine guns) are no longer legal in the USA for the most part. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is meant to defend against the threat of tyranny, and that is done better with rifles and shotguns, not handguns. Handguns only increase the murder rate, and are laughable weapons for defending against tyranny. High-capacity magazines for rifles make some sense in making the second amendment more effective. But they are not essential. Getting rid of high-capacity magazines for handguns may be a good start in eventually banning handguns in the USA. For more info and points of view: *Wikipedia: Magazine (firearms). Magazines and clips. *David Gregory Held Up A High-Capacity Magazine To See If The Head Of The NRA Would Budge On Anything. By Brett LoGiurato. Dec. 23, 2012. Business Insider. *NRA Chief Calls For National Database Of The Mentally Ill And Says: If You Want To Call Me Crazy, Then Call Me Crazy. By Brett LoGiurato. Dec. 23, 2012. Business Insider. *Why We Must Ban High-Capacity Gun Magazines. By Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. April 6, 2011. Huffington Post. Shoulda Robbed a Bank Return to top. More cops, more guns, more jails Return to top. ::See: 'Portal:Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate.'' Whatever good the NRA has done is far outweighed by its part in creating an incarceration nation. See Portal:Drug war charts and maps. See Wikipedia: Mandatory minimum sentencing, and Two and Three Strikes laws. On the day of the Mayan apocalypse, Dec. 21, 2012, the NRA marched in: "LaPierre announced that former Rep. Asa Hutchinson [ex-DEA chief], R-Ark., will lead an NRA program that will develop a model security plan for schools that relies on armed volunteers." Many of them trained and indoctrinated by the NRA. NRA Press Conference: Wayne LaPierre Calls For Armed Police Officers At Every School. Huffington Post, Dec. 21, 2012. More links Return to top. *NRA's Mandatory Minimum Sentencing campaigns. National Rifle Association. *Mechanism of fascism in the USA. Incarceration NRA. *Chart. U.S. Federal Mandatory-Minimum Drug Sentences. Non-violent possession only. Drug War concentration camps. Truth in sentencing: *Google search: truth in sentencing. *Truth in Sentencing Laws | eHow.com. Skyrocketing costs: *GUEST OPINION: Elderly prisoners pose little risk, big cost - Fall River, MA - The Herald News. Canada: *Video. "Pot & Politics. Chris Bennett at Occupy Vancouver!" The Harperization of the Drug War in Canada. Stephen Harper's slavish imitation of the U.S. drug war and "truth in sentencing". 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